'Plantation Memories' explores everyday racism. It is a compilation of episodes approaching racism as a psychological reality. Everyday
racism, argues Grada Kilomba, is experienced as a violent shock which
suddenly places the Black subject in a colonial scene – depriving one’s
link with society. Unexpectedly, the past comes to coincide with the
present and the present is experienced as if one were in that agonizing
past, as the title Plantation Memories announces. Linking
postcolonial theory, psychoanalysis and poetic narrative, she provides a
new and inspiring interpretation of everyday racism, memory, trauma and
decolonization in the form of short stories. From the question
“Where do you come from?” to the N-Word or Hair politics, the book is
essential to anyone studying African studies, postcolonialism, critical
whiteness and psychoanalysis